Afterblood
by TTAvatarfan
Summary: What happened between the time Ed was impaled and the time he recovered? Jeez, for some reason, needles just seemed to love to follow him around hospitals.


**A/N: There aren't any stories like this out there that I've seen, something that elaborates on Ed's time in the hospital after he was impaled. So, I did my own take on it. Enjoy, kittens. ^^**

**No, I don't own FMA, and I'm pretty sure you've heard all of the excuses from other authors as to why. Well, you can apply them to me too. **

_ _

The first day that Ed awoke, it really wasn't by his choice. Something pounded at the front door of his conscious, demanding that he become alert right then. Otherwise, deeply threaded instinct told him, it would only mean the worst for him.

Something heavy and cold was squeezing around his middle, as if it was trying to break him down to the bone, while warm darkness, beat by languishing heartbeat, stepped back to give the pounding thing more control. Sounds filtered in, trickling like rain, but so high and buzzing so loud it hurt his ears. The darkness backed off a little more as soon as Ed realized he didn't recognize any of the sounds, and could barely remember what he was doing asleep in the first place. A tingling burst of panic flowed hotly through the blood rolling by contrast sluggishly in his veins, allowing his eyes to open after a few tries.

The hazy fog that fit itself over his eyes cleared after he blinked it away, yet what he was seeing still had no meaning to him. Everything looked black and white, with some shades of neutral, but so what? His head felt heavy and thick, and obviously full of something that wasn't supposed to be there. Vaguely, he felt his ribs expand and contract several times in deep, sleepy breaths, telling him that he was at least still alive. His pulse beating rhythmically in his ear told him that, too.

But then at the same time, whatever had brought him awake before came in full force. And it came _hard._ The cold squeeze around his middle squirmed away quicker than lighting, and was replaced with hypodermic needle-like pain. There were dozens of the little needles, like teeth, clamping down on the side he wasn't laying on and trying to tear away a chunk of him. Without his consent, Ed's ribs shuddered as they tried to contain a guttural moan of shocked agony, and failed miserably. His jaw clenched, and his forehead went cold and prickled with sweat.

Suddenly, he heard voices. Someone else was here? They must have heard him, and the other whimpers that pushed out. He just couldn't stop them from coming, as the wild thing that had him in its jaws shook its head back and forth, making the pain burn deeper. Ed swore he could feel it down to his toes. Would they help him? Please god, say they'd help him.

_He'd been impaled. Oh yeah, that's right. No wonder his side hurt like a son of a bitch-_

"Well, what do you know, he's not dead," someone said, although it sounded like they were speaking underwater to Ed. He was too deafened by pain to really care what they were saying anyway, just as long as they'd get the _hell _in here and make it _stop._

In the next instant, someone was telling him to sit up while they helped him to do so, supporting his back until it rested against whatever his head had been on before. A pillow, it looked like. So he was in a bed, with white sheets.

_Hospital?_ Ed's brain supplied helpfully. In hospitals, everything was usually white. Well, looking around he saw that the only thing that was white were the beds. The walls were dingy shades of brown and gray, and the paint was peeling off, so obviously it wasn't a high class hospital.

"Drink this, kid," the speaker from before told him, and a small cup warped into his vision.

Ed rotated his head slowly around until it met with the eyes that belonged to the voice, and came face to face with a very old, very short woman. Her eyes, in fact, had been squinted shut with her age, but she still managed to see his deadened, confused gaze anyway.

"Don't stare at _me,_" she said, annoyed. Wait, how did she know he was staring if her eyes were shut? "According to these two hulks, you haven't had anything to drink since yesterday. Well, two yesterdays ago now. Getting dehydrated isn't going to help you build up all that blood you lost any faster."

Two other familiar voices, the chimeras, mumbled and growled something about how 'they'd rather be hulks than three feet tall.'

The cup's rim touched Ed's lips insistently, tipping to allow a tiny amount of water to flow between them. Just one little taste, and suddenly Ed's body remembered how badly it needed it. He gulped it as quickly as physically possible, desperate to quiet the fire that had flared in his throat. Once satisfied, he leaned back again, afraid to expand his ribs too far again for the teeth still gnawing on his side.

The woman doctor (he assumed she was a doctor, from the white coat she wore) took note of the hitches in his breathing, and waved over at a man (also a doctor). He nodded in return, obviously understanding something everyone else did not. He disappeared behind a doorway, and then came back with a syringe, handing it to the woman.

Ed began to panic again, fear choking the pain to ashes and sending his heart up his windpipe. Not needles, for the love of God, anything but _needles!_ He flinched away, trying to will strength into his legs so he could bolt for the door.

"Will you hold still!?" the old woman snapped, "If you keep squirming, I may not hit the right spot the first time, and then I'll have to try again. You don't want me poking you with this thing any more than I have to, right?"

Ed shook his head dumbly, adrenaline from the blind terror evaporating his insides. Trembling, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to sit still, whimpering pathetically and resolutely turning his head away so that he couldn't look at it.

Cold alcohol on the inside of his elbow, then the sharp sting of the needle, and then it was over. Ed's shoulders sagged with relief. However, it occurred to him just a second later then that he didn't even know what they injected him with.

"Pain meds," the woman answered, figuring at that same moment that he'd probably want to know, "They'll make you dizzy and groggy, but they'll be your best friends for the next few days, trust me."

"They any good?" Ed wanted to know, his voice dry and rasping from lack of use.

She regarded him for a moment, and then laughed quietly, shaking her head.

"You'll find out in a few moments here, kid, if they're any good."

_A few moments?_ he thought, _Really? Pain meds don't work that…Oooh…_

The world began to tilt again, much like it had when he had passed out after getting the beam pulled out. The high pitched ringing began in his ears again and his body suddenly felt warm and very, very weak. Lacking the strength to fight it, Ed allowed himself to slide, boneless, back onto the flimsy mattress. Blankets were pulled onto his shoulders, and then his will to stay awake and the feeling in his muscles dissolved into oblivion. Sleep, a promise to escape the pain, tugged on his arm like an insistent child, and flooded his mind with a darkness and cold that reminded him of river water.

_Oh wow…_he thought distantly, _…those pain meds are gooood stuff…_

_~*~_

The second time that Ed woke, it was once again by the hand of a throbbing ache, but this time the aches weren't just in one place. And the most prominent one wasn't even in his side, thanks to the pain meds. But this one, located in his lower stomach, was pounding with the rate and ferocity of his pulse, and absolutely would not let him relax again until he paid attention to it.

It only occurred to him then that he had no idea how long he had been asleep, and therefore had no idea when he had used the bathroom last.

Wincing, from both pains, he sat up, and allowed the blood to rush back into his head, before looking around for assistance. The man doctor was walking through the doorway, shuffling papers in his hands, and noticed that Ed was active once again. Although, he also noticed, that his expression was looking a little strained, and sweat was breaking out on his forehead again.

"Something hurt?" he asked, and then added, "I don't see how anything could. We gave you enough tranquilizers to put out a bear."

Ed huffed a breath through his nose and hunched his back slightly, keeping the doctor in view. "You got a bathroom in this joint?"

The doctor grinned, as if he knew that question would be coming. "Well, it's been three days now since you were brought in here. Three days since you were last awake, too."

_Oh god. _Ed crossed his legs a little tighter. Three days? Really?

"Luckily for you, and for everyone else who comes in here in your state, there's not a bathroom, but a washroom at the end of the row of beds here."

"As long as it's got a toilet, I don't really care what you call it, pops."

The doctor laughed again, and grabbed Ed by the elbow, helping him wobble to the end of the hall into the washroom, and then shutting the door behind him. He waited outside for a few minutes, before the sound of water running and the click of the door opening told him he was needed again. In turn, he guided his wobbling patient back to bed. Although, he wasn't sure if his knees were weak from blood loss or relief; it could have been both.

With the immediate problem solved, as always with Ed, another decided to arise and ruin his feeling of utter contentment. Another piece of the reality that he hadn't been awake for three days set in when a hole yawned widely in his middle, and the deep, heavy growl that was churned from it made it sound like he had a Tasmanian devil trapped inside of him.

"Figured you'd be hungry too," the doctor's mouth quirked up in a strange kind of half-smile. "But you won't be wanting anything to eat just yet. We've got to reopen your wound and clean it. It's not healing the way it should at this point, and it's likely to get infected."

Ed tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow in an utterly confused sort of way. What did that have to do with him not eating anything? Good lord, all of a sudden, his stomach felt like it wanted to cave in and eat itself, it was so empty. This guy better have a good reason to deny him food.

Just then, the woman doctor waddled in, her mouth drawn up in the scariest smile he'd ever seen. Well, the last time he'd seen that smile was on Granny Pinako, when she'd told him he'd probably puke blood during his rehabilitation after automail surgery. So, whatever entailed in this business, was probably most likely something he would not enjoy. His suspicions were only confirmed when he saw the contents of the little medical tray she carried in; the thing was loaded with evil looking sharp tweezers, surgical scissors, and ugh…more needles. Ed was beginning to wonder if they just followed him around in hospitals.

"I'm going to make you this offer once," she said simply, "You want sedatives? It'll put you back to sleep, or something close to it, but you won't have to stay awake for the pain at least. Easy choice, I think."

Surprisingly, Ed shook his head, deciding he'd had enough of being asleep and unaware of what was going on. If he could stand getting something pulled out of him, something that had run him through one end of his body and came out the other, then he could stand getting the resulting wound cleaned. The bandages were unwrapped, and the surgical scissors came out, cutting through the few, delicate bindings of his skin Ed had made in his haste to seal the wound. The old woman mumbled something about alchemy being overrated in terms of medical use, and that the 'young idiot should have left the sewing and doctor's work up to the doctors.'

It wasn't until the first of the cleaning alcohol touched the raw, inflamed skin, and sent the bile churning in his stomach, that Ed asked them how much sedative they could give him without sending him into a coma.

~*~

On the fourth day that Ed found himself awake, the doctors had allowed him a meal. Although, he was so nauseous by this point that he wasn't sure if he wanted to eat anything. They assured him that was just because he was so hungry, and to just listen to what they told him, because he obviously didn't know jack about how to recover properly after a severe injury.

Pride wouldn't let him admit how quickly he had inhaled the watery mashed potatoes they had given him after the first bite, barely even caring about the horrible taste. Just as long as it would kill his newly sprung, desperate hunger.

Soon after he had finished, Ed found himself leaning back onto the limp, hospital issued pillow and staring at the ceiling. He was far too groggy to do anything else; the lamp light that bled underneath the curtain secluding him from everyone else was soft, and his head was beginning to float from the new dose of pain meds. The feeling of freshly killed hunger given off by a comfortably full stomach only served to make him sleepier. He was seriously sick of feeling tired all the time, but given how dead his limbs felt, he couldn't express his irritation even if he wanted to. He barely even noticed the voices floating in from the front room at first, until a few disgusted groans cut sharply through the warm fog in his head.

"…have to hear this story, it's one of our best! You can't believe some of the people that waltz through that door! You're proof!"

That was the old woman doctor. The chimeras groaned in response.

"Please, we just ate," one of them complained.

"Aw, quit your whining," she shushed them, "You two are part of the military, right? So, reinforce those backbones and listen. It's not like we have people to tell this kind of stuff to anyway. Most of them are knocked out, like your little compadre behind the curtain."

Ed's ears perked as she mentioned him, the nosy part of him curious as to what had disgusted the chimeras so.

"Speaking of him," she continued, "I gotta tell you, we've had so many stab victims, I've stopped keeping track. But anyway, the best one we saw still have the bayonet stuck in him when he came in! There was blood everywhere, and it looked like a horror movie in here. Even better, he showed up when it was darker than a witch's soul out."

The mushy food in Ed's stomach began to grow hard and turn cold, jumping against its confines uncomfortably. Sure, he could just bury his head under the pillow to tune them out, but once again, his arms felt too heavy to move.

"Why couldn't they just take the bayonet out?" Darius wanted to know, a bit dumbfounded by the people in the story's apparent idiocy.

"See, that's the best part," the man doctor's voice was excited, trying to hold back giggles, "First of all, the guy who helped him in said he panicked and was too scared to touch his friend at all. Understandable, right? We turned on the lights to see them better, and the bayonet guy had one of his organs speared through!"

Ed felt the blood recede from his face and boil harshly in his middle. God, couldn't they shut up? Who actually thought these kinds of stories were worth remembering?

"His spleen was stuck to the end of it, hanging on by a couple of strings to the rest of him! Imagine being woken up in the dead of night for that! I'm telling you, haven't had anything happen like that since. The poor guy looked like he'd drop dead right there…"

_The beam grinding against his insides, cutting, tearing, sliding against his tattered organs that pulsed against each other furiously, trying to keep him alive. The blood sliding up his throat, out his body. It was so thick, and so dark, so nauseatingly dark…_

_And the pain. Oh god, the _pain._ He heard himself screaming all over again, screaming hard and desperately as his nerves shorted out and screamed with him…_

Ed felt himself shaking and saliva built up in his mouth quickly. The memories were too fresh, too horrifying, for him to be hearing them talk about things like that. His stomach clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched again, sliding around inside him.

_Oh Christ, no, I don't need this now…_

Everyone came rushing into his room later at the sound of his wretched vomiting, and then kept him grounded to the bed as his nausea ran through. Darius kept a big hand on the boy's shoulder, trying to still his tremors, and shook his head towards the doctors.

"Guess we weren't the only ones who thought your stories were too graphic."

~*~

Ed never knew pain meds could make someone dream like this. It had been a while since he had needed any, after all. The dreams were so real; all over the place and mixed up, but vivid all the same. That's probably part of the reason they were hurting him so badly, because he wanted them to be real, and they simply weren't.

"I miss you," Winry sighed, her nose nudging the indent of his throat, "You've been gone too long. I miss you."

Arms tightened around his shoulders, and she curled up tighter against him. The warmth and solidity of her body were almost tangible. The weak, childish part of him that he had buried long ago wanted to cry, because he didn't even know if she was really safe, wherever she was.

"I know," he said simply, voice low and barely a murmur. She felt it vibrate in his neck.

"Almost over." Winry closed her eyes and bowed her head into the crook of his shoulder. "Everything. Almost over. Then you can come home."

"I miss home." It was almost sad, the way he said it. Was this really him, this dream? Was this how he really felt?

"I just miss you. Both of you. But I really miss you."

Her lips brushed the side of his neck, and he actually felt them. He sighed quietly, appreciatively. Why couldn't this dream be real?

"I'll stay with you like this, if you want," Winry pulled away to look him in the eye, but kept her body touching his, "I've wanted to."

Ed nodded. "Yes. Please."

"I'll let you hold on to my heart then," she said profoundly, smiling, "Just be careful with it. I'll wait for you."

"I'll be careful," he promised, and pulled her back to him, nudging the top of her head gently. Warmth tingled pleasantly in his chest, and wind brushed his forehead.

"I'll be careful," Ed whispered in his sleep, and bunched the blankets around his shoulders with loose fists. With a dreamy sigh, he fell still again, still murmuring quiet nonsense to the air. It would be a while before he saw Winry again, he knew, and he hated it.

Oh well. He said he'd be careful, and he meant that in more ways than one. She said that she'd wait in return. In the end, it all came down to equivalency, just as it always did.


End file.
